Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. You can read Dan's recent work here

Tommy Robinson, Islamism and the EDL: when should we listen to extremists?

When should we listen to the extremists? This morning there’s been a strong reaction to an interview with English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson on the Today programme. I didn’t take any notes, but by and large Mr Robinson made a pretty good fist of pulling the wool over the eyes of his interviewer Sarah Montagu, and the nation as a whole.

He utterly rejected violence, he said, even though he has convictions for football hooliganism and common assault. He claimed the EDL was an organisation committed to peaceful protest, even though last year its planned march through Walthamstow was banned by the Home Secretary in order to “ensure local communities and property are protected”. Perhaps most significantly, he claimed his stalwart group of English patriots were simply the natural working-class response to the encroachment of Islamic extremism and Sharia. “Who wants to sit down and debate with, and listen to, working people like us,” he said, or words to that effect.

In my humble view, Tommy Robinson was spouting a load of self-serving, divisive, bigoted crap. I don’t think he opposes violence, I think he’s a thug. I don’t think his organisation and its members are committed to peaceful protest, I think they go around looking for, and creating, mayhem. And his claim to speak for the English white working class is as offensive as it is risible. Most white working-class Englishmen and women wouldn’t touch the EDL with a bargepole.

But am I entitled to hold that opinion? Do I have a right to challenge Mr Robinson, and his rationale of his views and his actions? He has openly expressed his feelings on Islam and extremism. Should I not take him at face value?

Mehdi Hassan’s thesis is essentially twofold. There can be no justification for acts of extremist violence: “Nothing – no cause, no war, no grievance – justifies the murder of innocents”. But “establishment figures continue to denounce those of us who cite the radicalising role of foreign policy as (to quote the former US state department spokesman James Rubin) 'excuse-makers' for al-Qaeda. To explain is not to excuse. The inconvenient truth for Rubin, Johnson et al is that Muslim extremists usually cite political, not theological, justifications for their horrendous crimes.”

Mehdi then goes on to cite the perpetrators of various terrorist outrages, and their own justification for these acts, including the “Times Square” bomber, Faisal Shahzad, “Drone Strikes”; “The Underwear Bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, “To avenge the killing of my Muslim brothers and sisters”; the “Boston Marathon” suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, “Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

It’s important to again stress Mehdi Hasan is not attempting to legitimise any of these acts. In fact, his motivation appears to be to try to sever the perceived link between terror and religious belief. “Terrorism may indeed be a criminal political act but it is a political act nonetheless. It is not, contrary to the conventional wisdom, theologically motivated”, he argues.

But the problem with Mehdi’s thesis, and the rest of those who seek to “explain but not excuse”, is that it involves handing over – on a silver platter – our capacity for independent, rational thought to those who have themselves rejected rational thought in favour of the bomb, and the box-cutter, and the machete.

Imagine if I inverted the argument. Say I took the points put forward by Tommy Robinson this morning and said, “Obviously, there’s no justification for burning down a mosque. But those people who are doing it claim they’re not racists, but feel they are under threat from Islamic radicalism. I think we should listen to what that have to say.” I suspect people wouldn’t take the view I was seeking answers. Instead they’d probably assume – with some justification – I was making excuses.

Equally, if we really want to listen to what people have to say as explanation for their actions, then we’re going to have to listen to everything they have to say. For example, when convicted of the attempted Times Square bombing, Shahzad smiled and said he would "sacrifice a thousand lives for Allah", and added that the "war with Muslims has just begun … "the defeat of the US is imminent, inshallah." If you wish to listen to the likes of Shahzad, fine. But then you can’t cherry-pick. His words sound precisely like the words of a religious fanatic to me.

Which bring us to the final problem. We either take our extremists at face value, or we don’t. But if we want to, then I’m afraid we’re going to have to be consistent. If you want to listen to Faisal Shahzad, then you can. But then you’re going to have to listen to Nick Griffin when he claims he is motivated not by racism, but by patriotism. If you want to give Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a fair hearing, be my guest. But then you’re going to have to extend the same courtesy to those who say Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech wasn’t a prejudiced diatribe, but an honest assessment of British immigration policy. Accept Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s stated motivation for blowing the arms and legs off Boston’s marathon runners if you must. But prepare yourself, because you’re also going to have to accept Anders Breivik's explanation that he massacred 69 teenagers on Utoya island because he was fighting a low-intensity civil war and was trying to save the Norwegian people.

Personally, I’m going to pass on that. When Tommy Robinson says he’s a man of peace, I don’t believe him. Any more than I believe the self-justifying rants of any of the peddlers of violence and hate that conduct their grim parade across our television screens and through our court rooms.

Mehdi Hasan may have faith in the sincerity of the world’s extremists. But I don’t.